Reviews

War movie released 12 years after the specific historic raid it depicts, with some details still secret enough to censor.

Subject

A British engineer braves the bureaucracy to build a special kind of bomb for destroying Ruhr valley dams as a means of decimating German industry in WW2. Once the project is approved, focus shifts to the creation and training of a special squadron for delivering the experimental munitions at unprecedented low altitude, in the dark.

Commentary

Imperial nostalgia is positive here; the word “old” in social contexts is clearly synonymous with good, and the hero calls his loyal dog Nigger, played by a dog of the same name. However, The Dam Busters ends on an interesting note: The commander of the mission goes off into the distance alone, exhausted, to inform a lot of families. Appropriately, the real events were not so important as this tribute makes them seem.